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”When it comes to player behaviour, land-based customers have a different profile to those who only bet online”: Exclusive interview with GAMING1’s Sylvain Boniver

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Casino and sports betting group GAMING1 is by far one of Belgium’s best-known suppliers, with over 42 gaming halls and casinos across Belgium, Switzerland and France – as well as 20 online operations globally.
Offering some excellent insight into how land-based vs. online has played out this year, we caught up with GAMING1’s Co-founder and COO, Sylvain Boniver to hear the latest on Europe’s market developments.

 

First off, for those who don’t know you – can you tell our readers about GAMING1 and what you do?

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GAMING1 is a casino and sports betting group, which leads the land-based and online market in its native territory of Belgium and beyond. Leveraging almost three decades of industry experience, our unique business model remains as invaluable as ever.

Combining the network and brand power of a top land-based operator with advanced proprietary technology, we create cutting-edge digital channels for casinos and sportsbooks looking to step up their online operations. In total, we have more than 42 gaming halls and casino resorts in Belgium, Switzerland, and France, as well as managing a portfolio of online operations in regulated markets across the globe.

GAMING1 has a strong track record in Portugal, how has the market performed there this year?

GAMING1 was the first online operator to go live in Portugal with Estoril. The venture has been fruitful, and we’ve enjoyed cultivating such a productive commercial relationship with our valued partners at the company.

Although we’re proud to lead the way in Portugal when it comes to market share, we have no plans to rest on our laurels, and our sights are firmly set on continued growth in the territory. In the first quarter of 2020, we recorded an overall increase in GGR of 19% despite the hiatus on sporting fixtures. With the country’s most popular competitions now back up and running, the future looks promising.

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How do you see the current state of the country’s iGaming market? Do you think it differs from other European markets? If so, how? 

Portugal is a market which is becoming increasingly competitive. At its inception, commercial activity was restricted to local companies, but it long since attracted widespread international attention.

From a legal perspective, the tax review conducted earlier this year was welcomed by operators. The previous system stifled competition, driving the market underground to the benefit of illegal actors.

The current regime, however, remains burdensome. The black market still comprises more than half of the Portuguese gambling industry’s total commercial activity. The situation isn’t helped by needlessly restrictive regulations, but I’m optimistic that the situation will be resolved in due course.

How much of a land-based tradition do we have there? Is it harder to convert land-based players than in other markets?

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It’s fair to say that Portugal’s land-based market is unique. It differs radically from that found in neighbouring Spain, for example. Casinos are the only place where you’ll find land-based bettors enjoying their favourite games – the slot machines seen in Spanish bars, arcades and even street corners do not exist in Portugal.

The country is currently home to just 10 casinos, three of which belong to our partner, Estoril Sol. That makes it a lot more challenging to create an omnichannel experience for players throughout Portugal, so we’ve chosen to focus on the regions where we are physically present.

When it comes to player behaviour, land-based customers have a different profile to those who only bet online. The cultures that exist around both verticals can also be very different, so the idea that it’s easy and effortless to bring land-based players online is fatally flawed.

Regarding player behaviour, land-based customers have a different profile than pure online customers and also different ‘cultures’; so, the idea that the conversion from land based to online is natural and easy, is not that simple.

How has COVID-19 affected the online partnerships through and betting and gaming services you offer to land-based operators?

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The closure of land-based establishments has underlined the imperative for operators in that vertical to expand their online activities. Our partners have been successful at redirecting land-based customers to their digital operation, thus limiting the financial impact of the outbreak.

The pandemic has also accelerated many of the partnerships that are in our pipeline, but have not yet been finalised. We’re in discussion with a number of operators looking to step up their online offering which, in today’s market, is a matter of survival given the temporarily reduced presence of land-based.

Why are these better for operators in the current climate than a traditional supplier agreement? 

The difference is that we win or lose together. Traditional suppliers often continue to charge for services regardless of the commercial success enjoyed by their operator clients. GAMING1, on the other hand, shares the same interests and objectives as its partners.

With more than 27-years of industry experience under our belt, operators know that GAMING1 is a partner that can always be relied upon. Focusing on a small number of projects means that we can invest more time and resources into a given partnership than traditional suppliers would. Unlike conventional providers, GAMING1 proactively helps operators bring land-based players online.

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What does the short-term future hold for Europe’s casino industry, and how can you help your partners during this turbulent time?  

Changes in player habits, coupled with Covid-induced restrictions, are likely to create challenges for operators without an online outlet. Those who have a synergised land-based and digital offering, on the other hand, will be much better equipped to weather the storm that is sweeping the global economy. For those in the former category, GAMING1 stands ready to help deliver an omnichannel experience to their players.

Which new European markets are on your radar? Are there any we should be keeping a close eye on?

We have our sites firmly set on French expansion, and are creating a land-based network in the country with our exciting new brand, ‘Circus’. We currently operate 6 casinos there, including a Club in Paris, and have undertaken a joint venture with valued partners JOA, who run 33 French-based casinos.
Of course, we are also eagerly awaiting online casino regulation and expect that the covid crisis will accelerate that process.

The Netherlands market also offers interesting prospects. Its authorities have just adopted a law to regulate the gambling industry, and we are preparing to enter the country with a top tier partner, so stay tuned for more info soon enough!

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Scale isn’t everything: Why agility is the new advantage in live casino

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Live casino’s rise has been meteoric, but the recent slowdown at the top end of the market suggests the next phase of growth won’t come from scale alone. As the sector matures, Ady Totah, CEO at LuckyStreak, explains why agility, hands-on management and a sharper product focus are fast becoming the new competitive edge.

 

There is a perception that the biggest live casino providers are the most capable. Is bigger always better?

It’s easy to assume that the biggest brands automatically deliver the best service, but with scale comes complexity. For larger organisations, adding new features or reacting to a regulatory update can take weeks or even months, especially when decisions span multiple time zones or teams have long approval chains.

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At LuckyStreak, while we’re an established business with a large, dedicated workforce at our live dealer studio in Riga, our management team remains intentionally small and hands-on. In many ways, we operate more like a start-up, with fast, focused leadership at the core.

Myself and my co-founder Erez Cywier are closely involved in the day-to-day operations. This proximity shortens decision making processes, speeds up product assessments and empowers us to act quickly. We’re not tied down by long-winded protocols or bureaucracy.

A perfect example of this agility came when we saw an opportunity in the growing sweepstakes market. We already had the foundations but needed to adapt quickly. In just one quarter, we delivered compliant user interfaces, multi-coin virtual currency systems and configured both our own live games and third-party content to meet the unique needs of the sweepstakes audience. This is the kind of rapid pivot that is only possible when your decision-makers are hands-on.

 

How do boutique providers keep product planning sharp and strategic?

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Knowing what matters and prioritising ruthlessly is what allows smaller providers to remain competitive in the market, when faced with more established, Tier 1 names. Speed, however, does not mean shortcuts.

We are sharpening our performance across the board and ensuring our roadmap gives us the flexibility to act when new opportunities arise. Effective product planning is all about focus. That means tuning out the industry noise, resisting trends for the sake of trends, and asking: what delivers real impact for our partners?

While some companies struggle under the weight of large and inflexible roadmaps, we have the luxury of being selective in what we build, and that makes our product roadmap  more actionable, more tailored and therefore more valuable to our partners.

 

How can providers keep up with rising regulatory pressures?

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Operating across multiple jurisdictions means navigating a complicated patchwork of compliance frameworks, licensing rules and technical standards quickly.

Compliance is not a support function, but a core part of the business. For larger businesses, these regulatory changes may present disruptions, but our size and structure allow us to react quickly and stay ahead of the curve, without compromising on quality.

To maintain both speed and quality, we moved from traditional Agile sprints to a continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) model. Instead of bundling releases every two weeks, we push updates multiple times a week. This means we can react quickly to feedback, ship improvements faster, and keep our platform evolving without unnecessary delays.

 

Why is a more focused approach the future of live casino?

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The criteria for what operators need from their live casino provider is changing. Reliability, flexibility, speed and compliance support are becoming just as, if not more, important than table count. We design everything with these qualities in mind, and we back that up with a strong culture of ownership and continuous delivery. This mindset allows us to innovate quickly, without sacrificing the robustness our partners expect.

In this new landscape, being lean, focused and responsive isn’t a limitation. In live casino, a genre requiring significant on-going operational investment, the providers that thrive are not always the biggest, but the smartest and the ones who can adapt fastest.

The post Scale isn’t everything: Why agility is the new advantage in live casino appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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CRM for online casinos

Getting to Know Incline Gaming Marketing with Chief Commercial Officer Jo Dennis

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Incline Gaming Marketing is redefining how gambling brands scale and succeed worldwide. Founded by industry veteran Peter Laverick, the agency delivers end-to-end digital marketing services across user acquisition, CRM, and creative. In this interview, CCO Jo Dennis explains how Incline acts as an extension of operators’ in-house teams, helping them acquire players, boost retention, and compete globally.

 

Incline Gaming Marketing. Tells us what we need to know about the business.

Incline Gaming Marketing (Incline) is a full-service digital marketing partner dedicated exclusively to the regulated gambling industry. We’re not just a supplier of campaigns or assets, we run marketing operations end-to-end for our partners, functioning as an extension of their in-house team.

Our expertise spans user acquisition, CRM, and creative, delivered by specialists who’ve worked inside top operators and suppliers. With offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and London, we provide market-specific strategies and execution for brands in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and beyond.

Founded by industry veteran Peter Laverick in 2020, Incline is part of The Conexus Group alongside Pentasia (recruitment) and Partis (strategy and M&A). Our partners range from household-name operators to ambitious new entrants, all looking for a team that can step in, own the process, and deliver measurable results from day one.

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Who are the main players running the business day to day?

Peter Laverick, our CEO and founder, has led marketing at some of the industry’s biggest names, including BetVictor, Aristocrat, and PlayStudios. Chief Commercial Officer Jo Dennis joined through our acquisition of Random Colour Animal in 2024 (RCA was originally founded in 2018) and brings more than 25 years in brand and marketing strategy.

Chief Marketing Officer Oren Langburt has over 15 years’ experience in real-money gaming, including leading marketing at FanDuel. VP Partner Success Haig Sakouyan is a 20+ year industry veteran, ensuring our partnerships deliver beyond marketing.

 

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Talk us through Incline Gaming Marketing’s core service offering.

We operate in three connected disciplines that together form a complete managed marketing service:

  • User Acquisition (UA): We plan, execute, and optimise campaigns across Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Apple, and programmatic networks, managing multi-million-dollar budgets. As an approved Facebook Business Partner, we’ve been rated the most effective media buyer in North America’s online gaming sector, achieving a 99.9% efficiency score.
  • Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM): Our CRM specialists handle the full player lifecycle — from onboarding and first-time deposit conversion to long-term retention and reactivation. We combine data-led segmentation with targeted offers and creative to grow lifetime value while controlling bonus spend.
  • Creative: We produce more than 1,000 assets per month, from brand identities and websites to broadcast-quality TV spots, slot game creatives, supplier content packs, and conference materials. All creative is performance-driven and integrated into UA and CRM campaigns for maximum impact.

When combined, these services allow us to act as a partner’s complete marketing department – – strategy, execution, and optimisation under one roof.

 

Which markets are you focused on? Are you pushing into any new regions?

We built our reputation in North America, where we work with leading land-based and online operators across casino, sportsbook, lottery, social gaming, and daily fantasy sports. We now deliver integrated managed services in Canada, the UK, continental Europe, Africa, and Australia, tailoring each approach to local regulations, player behaviours, and market dynamics.

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For many partners, this means we handle all marketing in new markets from day one – avoiding the time and cost of building a local team – and then continue as their long-term, embedded marketing function.

 

Why are your services particularly valuable to operators in the current industry climate?

Player acquisition costs are rising, retention is harder than ever, and regulatory pressure is mounting. Building and managing an in-house team with the full range of skills required – from media buying to lifecycle marketing to creative production – is expensive and slow.

Incline solves that. We provide an instant, proven marketing department with deep gambling expertise, multi-channel capabilities, and global reach. Our managed services model means we don’t just advise, we execute, optimise, and deliver results. Whether launching in a new jurisdiction or scaling in a mature one, we know the levers to pull for sustainable growth.

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What can we expect from Incline in the second half of the year?

We’re deepening our presence in Europe, Africa, and Canada while cementing our leadership in North America. Several major launches and brand refresh projects are underway, alongside scaled acquisition and retention campaigns for our long-term partners.

Our focus remains the same — provide operators and suppliers with a high-performing, fully managed marketing function that delivers measurable results faster, and with more certainty, than building it in-house.

 

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The post Getting to Know Incline Gaming Marketing with Chief Commercial Officer Jo Dennis appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.

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Interviews

Getting to Know Incline Gaming Marketing with Chief Commercial Officer Jo Dennis

Published

on

getting-to-know-incline-gaming-marketing-with-chief-commercial-officer-jo-dennis
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Incline Gaming Marketing is redefining how gambling brands scale and succeed worldwide. Founded by industry veteran Peter Laverick, the agency delivers end-to-end digital marketing services across user acquisition, CRM, and creative. In this interview, CCO Jo Dennis explains how Incline acts as an extension of operators’ in-house teams, helping them acquire players, boost retention, and compete globally.

 

Incline Gaming Marketing. Tells us what we need to know about the business.

Incline Gaming Marketing (Incline) is a full-service digital marketing partner dedicated exclusively to the regulated gambling industry. We’re not just a supplier of campaigns or assets, we run marketing operations end-to-end for our partners, functioning as an extension of their in-house team.

Our expertise spans user acquisition, CRM, and creative, delivered by specialists who’ve worked inside top operators and suppliers. With offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and London, we provide market-specific strategies and execution for brands in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and beyond.

Advertisement
European Gaming Congress 2024 (Warsaw, Poland)

Founded by industry veteran Peter Laverick in 2020, Incline is part of The Conexus Group alongside Pentasia (recruitment) and Partis (strategy and M&A). Our partners range from household-name operators to ambitious new entrants, all looking for a team that can step in, own the process, and deliver measurable results from day one.

 

Who are the main players running the business day to day?

Peter Laverick, our CEO and founder, has led marketing at some of the industry’s biggest names, including BetVictor, Aristocrat, and PlayStudios. Chief Commercial Officer Jo Dennis joined through our acquisition of Random Colour Animal in 2024 (RCA was originally founded in 2018) and brings more than 25 years in brand and marketing strategy.

Chief Marketing Officer Oren Langburt has over 15 years’ experience in real-money gaming, including leading marketing at FanDuel. VP Partner Success Haig Sakouyan is a 20+ year industry veteran, ensuring our partnerships deliver beyond marketing.

Advertisement
European Gaming Congress 2024 (Warsaw, Poland)

 

Talk us through Incline Gaming Marketing’s core service offering.

We operate in three connected disciplines that together form a complete managed marketing service:

  • User Acquisition (UA): We plan, execute, and optimise campaigns across Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Apple, and programmatic networks, managing multi-million-dollar budgets. As an approved Facebook Business Partner, we’ve been rated the most effective media buyer in North America’s online gaming sector, achieving a 99.9% efficiency score.
  • Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM): Our CRM specialists handle the full player lifecycle — from onboarding and first-time deposit conversion to long-term retention and reactivation. We combine data-led segmentation with targeted offers and creative to grow lifetime value while controlling bonus spend.
  • Creative: We produce more than 1,000 assets per month, from brand identities and websites to broadcast-quality TV spots, slot game creatives, supplier content packs, and conference materials. All creative is performance-driven and integrated into UA and CRM campaigns for maximum impact.

When combined, these services allow us to act as a partner’s complete marketing department – – strategy, execution, and optimisation under one roof.

 

Which markets are you focused on? Are you pushing into any new regions?

Advertisement
European Gaming Congress 2024 (Warsaw, Poland)

We built our reputation in North America, where we work with leading land-based and online operators across casino, sportsbook, lottery, social gaming, and daily fantasy sports. We now deliver integrated managed services in Canada, the UK, continental Europe, Africa, and Australia, tailoring each approach to local regulations, player behaviours, and market dynamics.

For many partners, this means we handle all marketing in new markets from day one – avoiding the time and cost of building a local team – and then continue as their long-term, embedded marketing function.

 

Why are your services particularly valuable to operators in the current industry climate?

Player acquisition costs are rising, retention is harder than ever, and regulatory pressure is mounting. Building and managing an in-house team with the full range of skills required – from media buying to lifecycle marketing to creative production – is expensive and slow.

Advertisement
European Gaming Congress 2024 (Warsaw, Poland)

Incline solves that. We provide an instant, proven marketing department with deep gambling expertise, multi-channel capabilities, and global reach. Our managed services model means we don’t just advise, we execute, optimise, and deliver results. Whether launching in a new jurisdiction or scaling in a mature one, we know the levers to pull for sustainable growth.

 

What can we expect from Incline in the second half of the year?

We’re deepening our presence in Europe, Africa, and Canada while cementing our leadership in North America. Several major launches and brand refresh projects are underway, alongside scaled acquisition and retention campaigns for our long-term partners.

Our focus remains the same — provide operators and suppliers with a high-performing, fully managed marketing function that delivers measurable results faster, and with more certainty, than building it in-house.

Advertisement
European Gaming Congress 2024 (Warsaw, Poland)

 

The post Getting to Know Incline Gaming Marketing with Chief Commercial Officer Jo Dennis appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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